Martin Gilbert (pictured left), the veteran asset management CEO who won the Funds Europe Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, is not only interviewed in the latest edition of Funds Europe magazine, but is also honoured by a poem by Todd Ruppert.
Ruppert (pictured below), the retired CEO and president of T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services who now heads Ruppert International, Inc, presented the award to Gilbert at the virtual awards event just before Christmas.
Gilbert has retired from Standard Life Aberdeen and in our interview explained that he would remain in asset management in a non-executive capacity, but that he’d like to be involved in “something small [and] more private than public, as that’s where all the growth is”.
He is now chairman of Revolut, the financial services fintech ‘challenger’, and last week it was announced he’d joined asset manager River & Mercantile as deputy chairman.
Having penned a number of poems for awards winners at Funds Europe awards events in recent years, Ruppert describes Gilbert in his latest work as having a “Midas ability” and as a “legend”.
Here’s the poem in full:
Poem honouring Martin Gilbert
A lifetime achievement award is something special to have received,
Martin Gilbert is most deserving for all he has achieved.
He started small, in his own backyard, in 1983,
and ended tall, by driving hard, a legend he would be.
From 100 million, at the start, in little Aberdeen,
to billions from around the globe, he’s an asset management dean.
A brilliant tactician, with relentless ambition and a single guiding vision,
success achieved through organic growth and acquisition after acquisition.
To say that he’s successful is to grossly understate, the status of this gentleman,
whose career has been just great.
In everything he undertakes he has that Midas ability,
his success has been extraordinary, but he’s achieved it with humility.
He’s a jovial chap with a great big smile, and a wicked Scottish wit,
and while others can be affected by fame, it hasn’t changed him a bit.
So, congratulations to you Martin, you deserve this accolade,
and please know your impact on this industry will never ever fade.
*Written by Todd Ruppert, retired CEO and president, T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services; CEO Ruppert International, Inc.
© 2021 funds europe
